The Wildness
by IvoryAlchemist
Summary: Deep in the woods of Canada, a wild thing lurks. It is a beast without thought, memory or presence of mind. Within that beast lies man; brutalized, sleeping in a womb of silence. And it might just take a little girl named Anne-Marie to wake him.


Prequel to X1, directly after Logan got mutilated by Weapon X. Movie-verse.

--

He was beginning to remember. It came at first in bursts -- it would occur to him, suddenly and without warning, that he had been here for a long time. And then he would lose awareness, and he would not recall anything at all for another long time. And then he would remember again -- that he was a man, that he was in the woods, that he had been surviving in them a while. He would try to cling to those moments, mentally clamp down on those fleeting flashes of consciousness, but they generally escaped him and left him feeling fatigued. So at first he did not like them.

When he first came to in the thick of the Canadian wild, his body hurt a great deal and he felt very tired. He ate only mice which moved near him, crunched them up and swallowed them, bones and fur and all. He lapped at a river he'd fallen near. Thick red wet oozed from seams along the sides of his body. He arms and legs felt very heavy, and once, a thing -- he was not sure what -- came out of his hand and hurt. He screamed in terror and pain and it went back in. Soon, however, his body grew strong, and he began to hunt. His smell and his hearing and his sight became very good. He forgot his early, bitter days, and forgot everything. Forgot clothes, forgot names, forgot words. Forgot, it would seem, his humanity.

Every day in this forest was very much the same as the day before it, but that was irrelevant, because he did not need nor recognize such things as days or even time. It was useless. He only knew things that were before him, that were necessary and worthwhile: hunger, pain, fear, cold. He knew that hunting in nighttime was easier than during the day. He knew that when he heard the air crack in the distance, foul smelling things with loud and dangerous instruments were near, and he knew to hide deep in the bushes and the trees. He knew that still water made him sick, and running water did not. He knew that deer did not run if he held very still and moved very slowly. He knew that the den he had made out of a the great hollowed out tree stump was safety. He knew that when he fought anything -- little things, like snakes that rattled and bit and made him sick, or great big things, like bears that roared and thundered and made him hurt -- he would always win. He knew that no hurt would hurt for long, if he could only get through it. He knew, above all else, those foul smelling creatures with loud and dangerous instruments were _bad, _and would do him harm.

When they came near him, he made them hurt and then be silent, like he what he did with his food. But he did not eat them. He tried once, and they tasted very bad -- like salt and nasty, toxic things. His general strategy was to avoid them -- when he heard the tell-tale sound of the air cracking or their moving metal monsters rumbling, he'd bolt up a tree. The foul-smelling things did not tend to look up, he found. But one time, a large, hairy one came near him and reached out and made noises, and he felt afraid. That was when he discovered the sharp, hurting things in his hands. They burst from his flesh and that frightened him even more, and the thing jumped back and roared at him, so he swung to hit it -- but instead, the sharp things plunged into its soft, flabby body and thick red water burst forth, and it fell to the ground with a deep, gruesome noise that made hairs prickle on the back of his neck. He liked the feeling.

Sometimes, when he was still and quiet and restful, things would explode in his mind. _Wolverine. _He did not know what it was. He did not know how to understand it. In his world, there was no use for words or language or understanding. So he simply let it go. Other things would occur to him -- he would feel a pinching pain in his stomach, and rub it thoughtfully. He would feel slightly nauseous, and want to sleep for a very long time. _Loneliness. _Perhaps if he knew these words, they would help him to understand and to cope. But he did not have such resources.

So he carried on his moment-to-moment existence, hunting deer and rabbit in the warm season and moose in the cold ones. And boy, did it get cold! When white powdered water fell from the sky, it made his hands blue and hurt bad for a while, but then they turned red and were fine. Other animals did not seem so fortunate as him; many times he found moose and wolves stiff and cold buried in the white powdered water. He wanted to eat them, so he learned that if he put them in his den, where it was warm, and weighted many hours, they were not so hard and cold anymore, and he could chew their meat. Mostly, though, he spent his time breaking up the places where water used to run and had grown cold, and sitting in his den. He felt restless and tired. He did not know what to do about either, and often forgot from moment to moment he felt that way, until another wave of the feeling would hit him.

Warm times were much better. Food was all over, and the wolves, who knew a natural-born hunter when they saw one, sometimes kept his company. They appreciated that this foul-smelling one did not smell quite so foul, nor make so much noise, nor try to crack the air with instruments of death and kill them. They would form a circle around him, lounging with their young playing nearby and pant. He would sometimes pet their soft warm fur, and felt the pain in his belly slacken.

Things seemed brighter during the warm times, too. Birds sang until he ate them. The sun was hot and the water was cold. The dirt felt nice and cool beneath his rough feet. He ran for miles and miles in search of prey and fun, and his body felt lithe and strong. He was whole and happy.

Life in the forest was very good.

But consciousness was not kind enough to leave him alone forever. Soon, it found him, and in a rather unexpected way. He was by the river, crouched over and drinking sloppily when he heard the distant rumble that meant those foul-smelling things would be coming. So he stood up to his full height, naked body slick with sweat and mud and bronzed by long hours in the merciless throbbing sun. He tilted his chin forward and trained his senses: he could smell two of them, and could hear the far-off echo of light feet through the thick wet dirt. Small ones, then. A growl erupted from his throat that he did not seem to notice.

The trees were safest when the foul-smelling creatures came. He loped a few yards to great old redwood tree and flexed out the sharp things from his hands, cringing slightly in pain. He stuck them deep into the thick bark and heaved himself up by his arms, filthy calloused feet bracing against the trunk as he scuttled up the enormous foliage. At last he reached the branches and buried himself amongst the pines.

The foul-smelling things took a long time to approach, but he was by nature a being not inclined to boredom. At last, they emerged through a thicket of shrubbery, and he flinched back. They were small, especially one of them. It was perhaps a quarter the size of the bigger ones. He curled his lip and climbed a few limbs higher.

He waited up in the tree until dark. The foul-smelling creatures were eating noisily, and it smelled very good. The bigger one stood up and emitted noises to the small one and walked away. She went far and disappeared behind the bushes. He paused, but the little one did not frighten him and the food smelled so alluring... Finally, impulse overwhelmed caution and he climbed easily down, moving limberly from branch to branch. He flexed out the sharp things and used them to swing to the ground. The little foul-smeller made a high-pitched noise and froze.

He crouched on his haunches and sniffed the air before looking keenly at the little thing. It didn't look dangerous. Maybe he could eat it. It stepped towards him and he leapt back, snarling fiercely. It emitted a series of high-pitched noises and squatted down on its haunches in mockery, but he did not appreciate.

"Are you a big, bad wolf?" His ears rung as it made the noises. They sounded strange but familiar, like a scent he hasn't smelled in a very long while. He tilted his head and took a few shuffling steps forward. "Are you gonna eat me up, Mr. Wolf?"

"Uh," he grunted, and reached out and snatched up some the of the delicious smelling food. He put in his mouth but it did not taste good, so he spat it out.

"Silly!" It cried. It snatched the food from him, and he decided not to kill it yet because the food did not taste good, anyway. "You can't eat the bag, silly!" It ripped up the food and pulled out crumply slices that smelled even more delicious. It reached forward and shoved it in his mouth, which frightened him. He jumped back and tasted the stuff. It was very good.

"Uh, huh. Ugh." He grabbed some more from the thing, and it moved it face and bared its teeth, but he did not feel threatened.

_Smile._

He blinked rapidly and squatted, not knowing exactly what that noise in his mind was. The creature did _smile _and made more familiar noises.

"You're a very funny wolf-man, you know that? What's your name?"

He reached out and touched its face, which was soft and pleasant feeling. The pain in his stomach returned and intensified. He snarled and recoiled.

"My name is Marie. Anne-Marie. Isn't that just the prettiest name?" It leaned forward and made another high-pitched noise and did another smile, and he felt the pain ease. He sat down on his bum and crossed his arms over his legs and watched it move.

He liked it.

One of his companions, a she-wolf, approached from behind. He grunted and she sniffed him and turned to it and growled. The little thing leaned forward to pet the she-wolf. "Is this your wolfie? He's very big, isn't he?"

The she-wolf did not like it, however, and lunged forward with her teeth bared. He flexed out the sharp things and stuffed them in, and the she-wolf screamed and thick wet red burst forth. The she-wolf fell, twitching, and he felt rather sad.

The little creature gasped and held very still. The she-wolf died, and he wondered why he hurt it so. Why did he save the little creature? Why did he care?

These thoughts made him tired, however, and he gave them up.

The little creature moved towards him and its face was wet. It crawled up on his legs and settled there, sniffing loudly. "Did ya - did ya kill it, mister?"

He grunted and patted its head fur, which was very smooth. He felt his, which was wiry and dirty. Huh. It did smile and petted his chest, which felt nice. He grunted again, this time softly. Its face was pleasing to him, with large brown eyes and pretty lips.

_Girl._

This time, he held the sound in his mind. _Girl. Gurrrr-el. _He opened his mouth and tried to make it, like it did. "Grrrr.....elle. Gurelle. Girl."

It did smile and moved its head up and down. "Yes. I'm a girl, Mr. Wolf. And you're a boy. Boy, can you say that? Boy."

He listened to it and liked its voice. He touched its hair again. Very soft. He liked that, too. He liked this little thing a great deal.

_She. She, girl, smile. She smile. She girl. Girl smile._

Suddenly, a barrage of images assaulted his tender mind: smells and sights and sounds, flashes of a beautiful feminine face, of blood and carnage, of screaming, of buzzing metal rods torturing him. He growled and writhed and the girl-thing leapt off him.

"What? What is it, what's wrong?"

The images slowed and came into focus. Violence. He saw a great stretch of land without trees, and many explosions and fallen bodies. Men in suits shouted and waved, dangerous instruments hanging from their arms. He looked down, and had scraps of neat cloth covering his body and an instrument of his own in his arm. A horrible thought struck him.

_He was one of them._

He sniffed himself. He did not smell foul. He smelled like sweat and forest and thick, unwashed odors humans would fight repugnant. He did not smell like them at all! But, when he thought about it a great deal (something which he tended not to do), he did look rather like them. Except he had thick wiry long fur sprouting from his chin and cheeks, and he had only seen a few of the foul-smellers who had that. He touched the little girl's chin. No fur at all. How strange. Maybe it only came to big ones, or when they got very cold.

"Wolverine." The word bubbled past his lips, and he found that peculiar.

The girl seemed to agree. "Wolverine? What's that?"

He shook his head wearily, though he wasn't especially clear on why. "No. Wolverine -- no."

She pouted her pretty lips and cocked her head to the side. "You're not Wolverine?"

"Wolverine. No. No, no, no, no." He repeated this new word and enjoyed it. He threw in some other ones, too. "Girl. Smile!" He pointed to her. "Girl." He touched her mouth. "Smile." He touched his chest, and grinned. "Wolverine."

The little one made some more noises, and another word came to him -- laugh. "Laugh. Girl. Laugh. Girl smile laugh."

She laughed some more and buried her face in his neck, and he felt her hot breath. "Yes, yes, Mr. Wolf! I'm smiling and laughing and I'm a _girl_!"

Another burst of synaptic activity occurred in his brain, and he remembered speech. "You're a girl. You're a little girl." He cleared his throat, which was hoarse, and blinked. "I'm not a girl."

She shook her head in agreement. "No. You're a big wolf man!'

He nodded. "I'm a man. I'm a -- I'm a --" He stood up and the girl almost fell, but he caught her. "Should I be.... wearing? Clothes, should I be wearing clothes?"

She shrugged. "No, that's okay. You're pretty hairy and you're in the woods, and you're body isn't too awfully fat."

He touched his beard. "Oh. Okay." He blinked and shook his head, hard, and felt very dizzy. So many thoughts. Too many.

He looked up at the tree he came from, and wondered if maybe he climbed up it and left this girl behind, that he would forget all these unpleasant thoughts and go back to the warm, whole happy simplicity of just living.

"I wanna go home," he breathed, and the little girl frowned.

"Well, where is your home, Wolverine?"

He shook his head again and felt very hollow. "I don't know. I don't think -- I don't think I have one."

"Oh." She looked at her little sandaled toes and squinted. "That's awfully sad, Wolverine."

He grunted and felt rather sad himself. "I know. I think I have to go now, girl. Where is your... what do you call them?"

"Mama?" He nodded, and the girl shrugged and looked past him. "She said she was running back to car to grab something. Sometimes, though, she says that when she really means she wants some grown up time with Mr. Benson."

He growled and shook his head. "That's a bad thing. I don't know much but I know that. That's a _bad _thing." He shook his head again and squeezed his eyes shut. "I think I've been doing some bad things myself."

She sighed and sat down and pouted. He scrunched up his face and felt not good.

"What's wrong, little one?"

She let out a whine and refused to face him. "Don't leave me, Mr. Wolverine." She looked up at him at length with huge, dopy brown eyes. "Please. Don't leave me."

He picked her up in his arms and worked up to a trot, moving towards the edge of the forest. He smelled the car and followed that scent. Once it came up into view, he saw it rocking and steam in the windows. He didn't remember many things but he remembered that and waited. The girl fell asleep against him, and when all was still for a while, he cracked open the door and settled her in her mother's half-clothed lap and turned away.

He knew what he needed now. He needed work, and money. He needed to move, and to fight, and to eat. More than anything, he needed to discover himself. He needed to find his path.

In years to come, the little girl named Anne-Marie would move from home to home, and her mother would die. She would live with foster parents in the deep south. She would forget that strange naked forest man named Wolverine, until the sight was nothing more than a deluded dream of childhood. She would run into him in a smoky bar some fifteen years later, swathed in a cloak and jaded by time. She would see his face and something deep within would stir -- the feeling of _home_. He would forget her, too; he forgot many things in those early, confusing days.

But for now, he held the soft feel of her in his heart and recalled her gentleness whenever the meanness rose up in him. She was his salvation. His angel.

His humanity.

Maybe that's why he would let her in when she found his camper so many years later. Or maybe it was just the sweetness she brought out in him so long ago. Maybe it was just luck.

He knew none of that as he walked towards civilization. What he did know was that he'd need clothes. He knew he'd need food and warmth, and something to catch him up with all the blanks he'd acquired over god knows how long he'd spent in the woods.

And he knew, as he looked over his bare shoulder towards the serene green forest stretching out silently around him, embracing him, calling for him to return to that life of perfect freedom and wildness and thoughtlessness -- he knew that he would never feel peace ever again. The Wolverine, that simple-minded beast of survival, ferocity and complete unconsciousness, must slumber. A _man_ must take his place.

A thought occurred to him then. A name.

_Logan_.

FIN.

My idea was that his whole inner Wolverine would totally take over when his psyche had been so destroyed by the Weapon X program, and Marie (sorry, a hopeless Rogan shipper here) would help him discover Logan again. What did you think of it?

Thanks for reading!


End file.
